New York Fashion Week: Proenza Schouler autumn/winter 2012

A model wearing a peppermint-hued, double-skirted dress in the Proenza Schouler show Photo: VLADIMIR POTOP

What a Marmite collection. A square half of the audience emerged from this nosebleed-techno sound-tracked show declaring it that was the show of the week: "At last, some fashion!" said a close colleague. "New shapes, nothing commercial, exciting, I want to wear it."

So which set was right? The slightly (alright, very) lame answer is both of them. Because yes there were plenty of four-years-ago Balenciaga touches, but after five days of resolutely uptown-glam or downtown-grunge New York-by-numbers tropes, this was at least something different.

From the so-wide-it's-ridiculous white pique or black leather trousers, via the aggressively diagonal-panelled oversize leather bikers, this was in-your-face "I'm not like you" wear - i.e. fashion - and many of the cashmere-battered European editors in the audience loved it. Much of this was what an excellent New York blogger calls "man repelling", and I was duly repelled, yet also strangely compelled by woven leather skirts that were Roman Centurion-high, and smuggler-friendly baggy woven tops that zipped from hip to armpit. A peppermint, peplummed, double skirted dress was a pleasure to behold, and an extended China-crisis of silk, quilted, bird-embroidered boxy frocks worked well too.

Proenza is never going to be more than a niche obsession, but it is at least a serious fashion enterprise.